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Analog Devices in talks to buy Maxim

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nctnico:
The problem is that the costs of the machines is too high to produce chips with large geometries. And it wouldn't surprise me if it turns out a 10nm fab can't do 100nm chips for some reason but free_electron knows this kind of details for sure.

coppice:

--- Quote from: SilverSolder on July 13, 2020, 09:41:35 pm ---I'm not sure I understand the reasoning.  For example:  say I have an old 300dpi document that I used to print on my 300dpi laser printer in the past.  Then today, I choose to print it on my brand new 2400dpi laser printer...  the document will look the same (still 300dpi resolution), and I will not have incurred greater cost for the fact of the new printer being capable of much higher precision - paper is still paper, toner is still toner, etc.? 

This is true even if the new printer is much more expensive than the old one.  I guess if you write off part of the cost of the printer on each printout, you could get uneconomical results compared to the old, written down printer, but that seems more of an accounting technicality than a real cost?

--- End quote ---
Printing is just one part of the work of a fab. All the prcessing steps in a fab are tailored to just one or two tightly defined processes. When you design a chip it is targeted at that small number of fabs which run the relevant process. If you design a chip that is a huge hit you can often be massively constrained by the inability to add production in more fabs. Many of the end of life notices you will see, especially for long life analogue parts, relate to the fab or fabs getting so old spares are no longer available, and the parts are impractical to move to newer fabs without major re-engineering to a new process.

tggzzz:

--- Quote from: tggzzz on July 13, 2020, 12:44:34 pm ---
--- Quote from: pidcon on July 13, 2020, 12:35:58 pm ---
--- Quote from: tggzzz on July 13, 2020, 07:12:23 am ---Old saying: "Friends don't let friends buy Maxim".

It would be a shame if AD becomes tarred by that percepetion.

--- End quote ---

I don't understand the old saying. Could you please elaborate?

--- End quote ---

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22friends+don%27t+let+friends+use+maxim%22
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22friends+don%27t+let+friends+buy+maxim%22

--- End quote ---

More direct answers, currently evolving, at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/sci.electronics.design/vraf26G86vo/zPjLOOZpBgAJ

David Hess:
I still remember when Analog Devices bought PMI (Precision Monolithics Incorporated).

Fabrication processes are also dependent on suppliers and this is a major problem for old linear processes.

peter-h:
The problem is that Maxim trashed and devalued their own business, through utterly inept management.

Here in the UK, they "serve" from an office in Ireland. Nothing wrong with that (corporation tax is lower there) but a year or two ago they stopped answering the phone or emails.

Yes you read that right. As a customer, you cannot phone Maxim and cannot email Maxim.

You can communicate with this owner of the universe only by support tickets on their website. No discussion possible of anything. They reply to the ticket. Even an RFQ for 10k cannot be communicated on.

Over many years I designed in loads of MAX489 MAX3089 MAX232 MAX3232 etc chips but now look at TI every time. TI are also generally cheaper, and of course any avoidance of special parts is a great idea and always was. Maxim is so difficult to deal with that we buy their parts from distis but all new products don't use them.

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